Designers may use successive-approximation-register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) in medium-to-high-resolution applications with sample rates under 1 giga samples per second (GS/s) (according recent research, high-speed SAR ADCs can run at around 1 GS/s). Resolution for SAR ADCs commonly ranges between 8 to 16 bits, and they provide low power consumption and smaller size. This makes ADCs ideal for a variety of applications, such as portable/battery-powered instruments, pen digitizers, industrial controls, and data/signal acquisition.
SAR ADCs may implement a binary search algorithm. Therefore, while the internal circuitry may be running at several gigahertz (GHz), the ADC sample rate is a fraction of that number due to the successive-approximation algorithm.